


nocturne ii: the cheek of night

by TolkienGirl



Series: All That Glitters Gold Rush!AU: The Full Series [134]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Brothers, Dreams and Nightmares, F/M, Family, Gen, foresight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-11-10 18:35:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20856365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/pseuds/TolkienGirl
Summary: In Mithrim and Angband, Feanor's sons dream. In the past, someone else does, too.





	nocturne ii: the cheek of night

_The North wind doth blow, and we shall have snow…_

“And what shall poor Robin do then, poor thing?”

_Chin on hands, Maglor answers eagerly, “He’ll sit in a barn, an’ to keep his head warm, will hide his head under his wing, poor thing.”_

“Very good,”_ Mamaí says. She smiles, and she reaches down to stroke back his curls. _“My, my, your hair is as red as Maitimo’s!”

“No, it isn’t!”_ Maglor’s hair will grow to be as dark as Athair’s one day; Athair _promised_. There were days on which he wanted Maitimo’s hair, before he grew up. Now that he is five and _quite a little man,_ says Grandfather Finwe, he is content. _

_He was _content_, until Mamaí went and told a falsehood._

_Maglor leaves Mamaí and her burning book, and runs to the mirror, crying very hard. He rubs his eyes and looks._

_Maitimo’s face stares back at him. _

_Maglor screams. _

*

_He is hunting in Formenos—not in the land beyond, but in the house itself. The hallways coil like the endless belly of a snake whose bones he should know better. He cannot map his path; he curses and coughs dust, and the footsteps of his prey skitter: closer, closer._

_Who—_

_Celegorm takes the bullet squarely to the face. Feels it shatter his browbone, feels the blood run down into his eyes and burn them, feels life and light flicker out._

_In this one, he always dies._

_*_

“Do you remember, the day Athair told me that I had to go to the city? I hated myself so much, Macalaure. I was so sure that if I had only been a little—brighter, perhaps, and quicker to learn, then I might not have needed to go away at all. I would not have been beyond Mamaí’s ability to help—to teach. But now I don’t know. I don’t. And if I hadn’t gone—and you hadn’t come with me—I wouldn’t have known Fingon as I do. Oh, damn. I swore I wouldn’t speak of him.”

_Maglor says nothing. He is face-down in the water._

_Maedhros, upon realizing this, sinks too. _

_*_

_Amrod is alive, in Amras’s nightmare. He is grateful for _that_. _

_*_

_The red river, the green meadow, and _you, I, we_ are flat on_ your, my, our_ riverbank_

_(This is not the same as the meadow)._

Athair, how long must I go on?

Until you have made what I did, little one.

I am no longer little, Athair. No longer young.

_Cast the stones, in anger or a desire to make the red water dance._

_*_

_They are all happy again, all coming down the winding road. There is the house beyond the crabapples and maples. There are the barns. See, here are candles in the kitchen windows. Caranthir would know the yellow flame-glow anywhere, and his heart breaks in two, he is so happy. _

_He gathers up the pieces of his heart, and runs._

_*_

_They sleep._

_*_

_And long ago, she wakes. Witch-woman, bird-boned in her husband’s arms. Even in the days of powdered wigs and white-washed faces, her hair marked her separate. Silver-blonde or early grey—it did not matter, it was not ordinary, matched to her mercury eyes._

_She struggles and stares, into the darkness, her elbows pointed against his ribs._

_He shifts, slow in half-sleep. He says, bewildered,_

_“What is it, my love?”_

_She does not answer. In her belly, the child moves. _

_(Restless, as she is. Somehow stronger.)_

_“What is it?” Finwe asks again, more clearly._

_Miriel answers—she has never been one to lie—“In my dream, you cut off my hand.”_


End file.
